


these are good lies, hold me down

by newsagogo



Series: i didnt know i was broken 'til i wanted to change [5]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsagogo/pseuds/newsagogo
Summary: Korse leaves, drives far out past the edges of the zones. Surprisingly, theres something there.
Series: i didnt know i was broken 'til i wanted to change [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871935
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	these are good lies, hold me down

**Author's Note:**

> this took wayyy longer than i thought. quality is not guaranteed <3

As it turns out, past the very edges of the zones is just as sandfilled as the zones themselves. He drives until the car runs out of fuel, and then keeps driving until his desperation runs out. Korse didn't pack any supplies with him so when he gets out of the car, he chooses to walk straight forward, the picture of a happy couple clutched in his hands. 

Soon, the heat is too much.

In an (un)fortunate twist, Korse wakes up. Wakes up inside, even, and as he’s attempting to parse this strange occurrence his attention is soon taken by the older man near him. The man in question notices him moving, and leans out of the room Korse is in to yell “He’s up!”. Unwilling to deal with the situation, Korse makes good use of his exterminator training and forces himself into unconsciousness again.

He has to deal with it eventually, anyways.

The community (are they civilization? they have none of the sterility of Battery City. Korse can't quite being himself to view them at the same level as the rabble outside the city walls) was an unexpected find. 

The only white is sun-bleached or worn soft, the sharp clothing style from the city as absent as the riotous mass of colours the rebels in the zones wear. Not to say they aren't as colourful, but it seems less in violent opposition to the cleanliness and order of Better Living, and more because they can and they want to. The first few days he spends there they drag him around the settlement. Shown the ins and outs of the place, introduced to the people in charge of different sections (and wasn't that a surprise? no droids to do manual work, no city tech to control the weather for crops).

The inhabitants share soft looks and call themselves a town of lost souls. everyone there ran from something. Chased or not, they all made their way to the same spot. They stay, they live, they learn, they leave. when the wind calls them they follow it to whoever it leads them to, to whoever needs someone. They're out of the reach of any corporations, it would be cruel to stay and hoard and never help those who didn't stumble their way out fueled only by desperation.

They seem happy to just offer help. Korse can't understand it.

A week in, when they deem him capable enough to follow instructions, Korse finds himself unceremoniously ditched in one of many kitchens run by the oldest woman he's ever seen. The people here are both younger and older than any he's seen in Battery City, covered in imperfections they seem content and even proud to have. Her brown skin has wrinkles on wrinkles over laughlines and crows feet and she takes one look at him and tells him to call her granny or not bother. She asks for his name and asks if its the one he wants and there's pity he doesn't understand as much as he doesn't understand the question. Korse is handed a knife and a pile of vegetables he doesn't recognise to cut and when he questions why they don't have any machine to do this for them the old woman lightly smacks the back of his hands and says that if someone can do it themselves they might as well help out in her kitchen. The air is still.

Old women, he comes to learn, talk. Day by day he spends in that kitchen where none of the cupboards seem to have their doors fitted properly the Old Woman spins tale after tale. He learns of the people who've been and gone from this set-up in this beyond, the way it all started and the grandchildren she watched the wind call somewhere they were needed and the woman she loves and laid to rest and returns to lead the younger ones to her.

He refuses to think about the photo he keeps in his pockets. He eventually starts to respond to her prodding. She pushes flatbreads into his hands as he takes his break.

There is… less judgement to the reveal of him being a Scarecrow. He gets a few questions on what it means, and gets the baffling response of "we called them something different" from a dozen different groups. The old woman who insists he calls her granny merely cackles at his confusion. "You think you're the only one to run from the wrongs they've done? Ran from their mistakes? The same stories are retold in different guises, if you live long enough you'll start to spot the cycle."

Not for the first time, he wonders how old Gran truly is. She grins as if she knows what he's thinking, and insists he eat, he's all skin and bones, there's plenty of rice, to take another helping.

Korse thinks about that Pornodroid he let escape from time to time. Did it manage to leave? Did it get scrapped like most others? He wonders if there were any other exterminators as tired of it all as he was. Any who would've gone to his apartment and let the man sleeping there go. Korse never had the time for this type of idle thoughts before. It's a novel thing, to have time to go over every mistake and loss. In some way it feels crueler than re-education. Maybe if he was better, it wouldn't hurt as badly.

One afternoon, as he helps Gran make soup, he asks her. He wants to be better, do better by the memory of the man he lost. Korse doesn't know where to start or even where, and he tells Gran this. Gran says,

"You didn't really have a choice, not with that company, but you enjoyed that work, and until you realise that's what you have to apologise for you'll never be the better man you want to be." She ladles more into the bowl he holds. "You want to be better? Work for it."

He holds the bowl in his hands, feels the warmth seep out of it to his skin. She doesn't expect an answer, granny Knows when her words are heard. Korse stares unseeing at the steam rising, and wonders.

Gran's words follow him for days. Is it his work that's the issue? He only ever followed orders, yes, but it felt good to be the best at it. There's no way he can remember how many firefights he'd been in over the years, but still… when he thinks back, he's struck by how young everyone seemed. Korse only saw their elusive doctor DJ once, but he's realising that compared to the Director or to Gran, he wasn't that old really. He thinks of half screamed curses, the pleading to a witch he'd hear be silenced by a good enough shot, the ones who ran. They were children playing war dressed up in the clothes of people already taken and whatever colour they could claw away from the city and maybe Korse is realising the reality of what being a scarecrow is, was, will no longer be.

Korse thinks of terrified citizens fleeing hand in hand to the sands, of teens clutching onto whoever's left after a clap. The silence around those strange mailboxes. Of parents begging not to be replaced and droids pleading not to be scrapped. He thinks of the care these people clearly had for another, and thinks of a man he loved who hid in his apartment and the regulations they happily broke. He thinks of the years and effort he put into his work, and the cruelty under the image of Battery City. 

He remembers the pain of losing the man he loved and how it still aches and realises he inflicted that pain on countless others. The weight of it makes itself known. When he sleeps that night it isn't restful and for the first time, Korse dreams.

_he dreams of a figure in feathers floating, too large to see but perfectly visible, he looks straight at her and his eyes burn but shes too monstrous a woman to look away from and she's so so angry. the god in the shape of a woman in the shape of a witch screams at what he represents, at what hes done, at him for never thinking it was cruel to force those masks of souls into her arms so fast and so young. she feels and he knows and he understands why shes the Witch suddenly and wishes he didnt. he doesnt apologise, knows it wont be accepted and he cant open his mouth (maybe he never had one?) and she doesnt want words. she unmasks herself but he cant see it she screams her rage and grief at him and he burns and she claws at him and demands he repays her for every life and cant answer while he burns but he will he will he promises and_

Korse wakes up with purple gouges scarred into his cheek down to his neck. There's a breeze whispering through the room carrying voices passing through makeshift corridors. Korse wonders if all regrets taste like the blood and feathers he's spitting up, if it will always smell of ozone and seared skin. He thinks of the photograph he keeps, and wonders if doing so ever stops hurting.

Most people start giving him some space but gran takes one look at the scars, nods, and says "its a step in the right direction."

She pushes him to the counter, and tells him to start on the dough. 

His movements have a purpose now. Korse wakes each day with the taste of ozone and copper on his tongue and the distant screams of an angry god in his ears. This is deserved, he understands that. He works towards preparing to leave, and notes the others preparing to follow now with the knowledge the Company in that area has fallen. Gran watches the preparations, he feels her eyes on him no matter where he is and feels her laughter in his bones. The days pile on and the taste of his mistakes become familiar and eventually the day to leave arrives.

When he returns to the Zones, Korse isn't asking for forgiveness. He returns to do penance, to apologise for what he did to so many. There are others there already like him, but none were so known through the Zones like he was. Korse knows he will not be absolved, and leading back people who can help the new way of life in the zones is probably the only thing that keeps the group at the boundary from ghosting him then and there. He feels the cruel grip of an angry Witch on his shoulders, sees the hate and understanding in the eyes of the boy in red who meets them. The group watches this boy twist a violet bangle around his wrist as he gazes at them, gazes through them, sees the witchmarks on Korses face. The boy turns and walks away, and both groups follow unquestioning.

_(Colours of the past haunt Korse. The boy in red he's seen before, but the colour and the way he places himself in the front reminds Korse of a zonerunner long ago he dusted. Memories of red hair dye, a blaster pressed to someones chin, the savage joy he took in his work, the exhaustion of later years. Nearby, a radio crackles into life and Korse can't bring himself to to look or listen for fear of seeing it in the hands of a little girl.)_

Korse is left alone. The desert he'd stalk through has changed, and he doesn't think he deserves to see what state the City is now. He feels the Zones pulling at him, demanding he works to make up for what he's taken away. The sands scratch at him and the ghostly hands of souls he didn't leave the masks of grip onto him. There is no place in this new world for someone like him. He will content himself by cleaning up the messes he made in that old world. Korse looks at the shape of a Witch waiting for him and takes his first steps towards "I'm Sorry".

**Author's Note:**

> this was a bad experience i never want to have to try for a white mans pov again. terrible. anyways the titles another Bears In Trees lyric  
> say something to me on tumblr @killjoynest


End file.
